This blog is an exploration of principled problem solving which is an initiative at Guilford College encouraging a focus of people's abilities and experiences toward solving real-world problems under the guidance of the college’s core values of community, diversity, equality, excellence, integrity, justice and stewardship.

Classes

11/17/2010

We all love food in our bellies but few of us regard the health implications of eating certain foods. There are even fewer people who are aware of the labor and environmental effects of our dietary habits. These effects are invisible to many consumers and because of this many people have lost touch with where their food comes from and who produces it. Let’s be honest here, it’s the stuff that is keeping us alive so it’s pretty important.

The current generation of college students might still have a vision of their hamburger frolicking in a grassy field before it landed on their plate but that vision is far from reality. Our visions are served to us in between the same greasy buns our hamburger is and because we don’t go see the cow before we eat it, it is easy for companies to spoon feed visions to us.

We no longer have to work in the fields to fill our plate and, yes, we should be grateful for that. However, the least we can do is become conscious eaters. When we walk into the grocery store or the cafeteria should we not ask, “umm, I wonder where this bacon came from.”

For the sake of the farmer and for ourselves let’s ask this simple question about the origin of our bacon.

We acknowledge the safety of our food on blind faith. What if the food we eat is damaging to our bodies? There is nothing wrong with asking this question. If we ask it and the answer is, "there are no negative effect on our bodies," then great. But if we are putting ourselves and the planet at risk then lets do something about our diet. College students are supposed to think critically about the world not just give in to blind faith.

Luckily there are organizations that are helping students think critically about the food on their plate. Nationally, the Real Food Challenge provides support to students who want to ask the questions and work with food providers to bring local, healthy food into school cafeterias.

Meatless Monday encourages schools to recognize the negative effects of meat and eliminate it from the menu for one day.

The Food Project in Massachusetts gets students out on the farm to get their hands in the dirt and experience the work that goes into growing food.

CoFed helps students take control of their food by initiating student run cooperatives on college campuses.

Organizations like these are sprouting up all over the country to help people reengage with their food, to think critically about eating and to take control of their food.

Here at Guilford we could use a little more resilience in our food. So start building resilience by asking critical questions about our food.

Sure we need to feed our bellies but our minds should be equally hungry. Let’s fill those hungry minds with information about the world around us. Next time you walk in the cafeteria, I encourage you to follow your belly and your brain. Ask about where the food is from, who grew it and why it tastes so good.

In my first few years teaching at Guilford I noticed a problem. Many of my students ended their four years of academic preparation for the “real” world feeling, for the most part, unprepared. They had tremendous energy, critical thinking skills, and an excellent understanding of the many challenges facing the world they felt not quite poised to enter. But that very breadth of understanding often left them overwhelmed. They needed a class to address how, in practical and existential terms, they might begin to take meaningful and productive first steps after Guilford with an understanding of how well prepared they are and what strengths they might build on. They needed to integrate all of this academic learning with the personal expectations, common sense and social skills they, to varying degrees, developed while in college. In short, they needed the sort of experiential educational experience the Center for Principled Problem Solving was designed to address.

“Creativity, Vocation, and Success” is an interdisciplinary class for graduating seniors. The specific answers to the question of how to begin the next phase of life after college are different for every student, but there are common threads. Some of the big questions seniors struggle with include: how to live a good life, what is adequate and sensible preparation, what is the value of enjoying the present moment, what is a reasonable work-life balance, how to maintain a standard of self care, care of community, prioritize stewardship of valuable resources for both individual and group, will I ever make enough money without selling out?

I am a photographer, and a literal one. So, I saw the pedagogical path to effectively wrestling with these questions as a literal path through the woods. The course is based on the reawakening of a sensual relationship with place, with our place at Guilford and how much that connection can help us with future ones. We begin and end with a book by David Abram called Spell of the Sensuous, and conversations with Abram’s ideas are woven throughout the class. Class meets outside, in the Guilford Woods, in the bog under the Big Tree, from 4 pm until 1/2 hour after sunset (the class goes from 4-8), regardless of weather.

We entertain guest speakers, mostly Guilford alumni, from a variety of disciplines who are generous enough to wrestle with the concepts and the big questions right along with us. These are people who faced the post-college transition with varying degrees of grace and are willing to share their stories to help save the current generation some trouble and put them in touch with how many important life skills they already possess.

But just as important as the readings and speakers, the bog and the big tree, are two weekend long backpacking trips we take to natural areas. The weekly four-hour class is a long one but not long enough to fully reawaken the senses and allow the students to embody their thinking, feeling, sensing selves. These days of backcountry travel work wonders on the students’ confidence and perception and sense of readiness for unimagined challenges. A few days of walking with a load they packed and must depend on for their needs, a few days of clear consequences for poor decisions, and the delight of simple preparation for simple comfort help them understand that this next step in their growth is just that, a next step. A few days to focus on the new perspective of a new place, and, perhaps most of all, a few days of remembering and discussing and feeling the tremendous benefit that this longer path, the roughly 1400 day stint of the liberal arts life of the mind, can bring to an adequately active and cared for and challenged body.

04/18/2010

One of the exciting outcomes of Reclaiming Democracy: Dialogue, Decision-Making, and Community Action, the inter-institutional course supported by Guilford’s Center for Principled Problem Solving in Fall, 2009, will be a “Celebration of Free Speech in the Park” at Greensboro’s Center City Park on Tuesday, April 20th, from 6 – 7:30 p.m. The Center contributed funds to the course as one of my projects for my Faculty Fellowship with the Center. At the Celebration of Free Speech, area college students and community members will gather to stand up and speak at the park on public issues currently of deep concern to Greensboro residents. In the spirit of London’s Hyde Park Speakers’ Corner, speakers will stand on a crate, soapbox, or 3-step ladder to discuss the fate of the White Street Landfill, public education standards, sustainability practices, the face of homelessness, and advocacy for more city bus benches, among other topics.
Though completed in December 2006, Greensboro’s premier park located at the corner of Elm and Friendly Streets in Downtown Greensboro just a few weeks ago lifted the restriction against “delivering political speech” at the urging of faculty and students who had participated in the Reclaiming Democracy course. Center City Park is owned by the Bryan Foundation and Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro with maintenance support paid by the City of Greensboro. In March 2010, all Center City Park signs, brochures, and web site were amended to reflect the change.
Featured speakers and topics include: Jordan Auleb, Guilford College, on the need for an alternative currency in Greensboro; Crystal Cornine, UNCG & Ralph Johnson, The Concerned Citizens of Northeast Greensboro on the fate of the White Street Landfill; Wesley Morris, Raise the Minimum Wage Campaign on Collecting Petition Signatures and the Threat of Trespassing Charges; Garon Anders, UNCG on Parents Supporting Parents of Guilford County advocacy practices; and a selected 11th grade Dudley HS student on BUBBS (Bringing us Bus Benches & Shelters).
The park rule change came after faculty with the Reclaiming Democracy course noted that Center City Park, for all intents and purposes, is a public park—it looks like one, it operates like one, and its access is like one. As such, the argument continued, Center City Park should protect and encourage free speech. They pointed out that public spaces are needed to encourage political discussions, disagreements, and coalition building. Consultations ensued with the City of Greensboro’s legal department and the UNC School of Government through the winter to address what was at stake, namely free speech rights versus private property rights.
The April 20 gathering of nearly a dozen speakers marks the beginning of what faculty and student organizers hope is a drive for stronger and more creative modes of expression that reflect the vitality of sprit and connection among citizens of the city engaging in these important democratic arts.

12/03/2009

Even though it was a windy, rainy evening, over 100 people turned out on December 2nd for the public forum, Reclaiming Democracy: Greensboro's Public Narratives, Cultural Landscapes, & Free Spaces. The forum, which was co-sponsored by the Center for Principled Problem Solving, and held on Guilford's campus, brought together students from four area campuses--Guilford, Elon, UNCG, and Greensboro College--with members of the larger Greensboro community, to hear students present their group projects on democracy and local issues of concern to Greensboro residents. The forum was the culmination of students' work in a course, 'Reclaiming Democracy: Dialogue, Decision-Making, and Community Action.' Presentations included, "White Street Landfill: Get 2 Know", "Reclaiming the Voices of Refugee Youth in Greensboro," LGBTQ Voices in Greensboro," "An Ethnographic Study of the Morningside Community," "Balancing Media Bias: The Role of News Coverage and the Path to Independent Media" and "Warnersville: Past, Present, and Future."

Students went beyond simply doing research into their topics; several groups actually worked with community members to address issues, created websites and used facebook to educate the public about their issues, went before the Greensboro City Council, and the Guilford County Board of Education to ask for public officials to take action to improve the issues, and created zines, booklets, and pamphlets to get the word out about their concerns. The teaching assistants for the course also created projects, a photo display of significant sites in the cultural landscape of Greensboro, and a website with interviews with Greensboro residents about their understanding of what 'democracy' means. You can access the interviews at www. democracyingreensboro.wordpress.com.

The evening was informative, exciting, and inspiring. As one of the seven members of the teaching team, I left feeling that this kind of intensive collaboration between college students and community members, focused on addressing real issues, is at the heart of what colleges and universities should be doing. I felt pleased to hear one student say during her presentation, "this wasn't just a school project."

On a more sobering note, one of my teaching colleagues observed at the end of the forum that a theme running through the presentations was the absence of strong participatory democratic processes in the city of Greensboro. That is a subject worthy of further study. Anyone interested?